


the reason why (there's good in goodbye)

by LiveLaughLovex



Category: The Code (TV 2019)
Genre: Divorce, F/M, Introspection, Pre-Canon, go me, hey guys i didn't make maya's ex a total ass in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:55:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27809455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveLaughLovex/pseuds/LiveLaughLovex
Summary: It doesn't feel right to leave. They've loved each other since they were fifteen, after all, and even at thirty-one, it's sometimes a hard thing to accept, the fact that loving someone doesn't always mean beingin lovewith them, that something that special is also that much morefragile.That sometimes the things it's most important to let go of are the things you never wanted to let go of at all.
Relationships: Maya Dobbins/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	the reason why (there's good in goodbye)

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from "Good in Goodbye" by Carrie Underwood. 
> 
> Alright, so, I recently began rewatching the series (for the umpteenth time - I might have a problem), and I was drawn, once more, to that line in _P.O.G.,_ when Maya tells Abe she's terrible at paying alimony on-time. Now, obviously, alimony payment means she was married at some point in time, but, according to the little bit of research I did, alimony cannot be received in Virginia after fewer than six years of marriage, at which point the spouse seeking support can be awarded it for half the time they were married (i.e. after six years of marriage, three years of spousal support can be ordered). Maya's stated as being 33 in _Back on the Block,_ and it doesn't seem like her divorce is a thing she's still going through, even with the few semi-bitter comments she said in P.O.G., which implies to me that she's been divorced for at least a little bit of time. So, I'm guessing she's been divorced a year or two, and with six years being a requirement prior to alimony payments, that would put her in her mid-twenties (24 or 25) when she got married. 
> 
> (Does any of this have much influence on this story, beyond a few sentences? No, not really, but I spent far too long working out this timeline not to share it.) 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Maya got married on a Saturday in mid-July, six weeks after celebrating her twenty-fourth birthday. She had never been happier than she was on that day. As she made her way down the aisle, her arm hooked through Matty’s, it felt a lot more like floating than it did like walking. She didn’t think anything else was ever going to make her feel that way again, the way that Ben did. She _didn’t want_ anybody else to make her feel that way.

Nearly six years into her marriage, she still didn’t want anybody else to make her feel that way. By then, though, it was for a very different reason.

It wasn’t Ben’s fault. Really, it wasn’t. Her husband was a good man. He always had been. He was kind to a fault, at times, and they argued about the things that didn’t matter much more often than they did the things that did, but he was still _so good_ , and she loved him _so much_ , and even though the idea of staying didn’t sit right with her, neither did the idea of _leaving_.

So, she stayed, even when it became obvious she shouldn’t. She stuck around, a lot longer than she ever should’ve, whispering vows she didn’t mean against his skin late at night, offering half-hearted promises of _maybe_ and _someday_ and _we’ll see how it goes_. She knew, even as she said it, she wasn’t likely to ever truly _want_ the life her husband so quietly yet so desperately craved – a simple one, with the days spent working the sort of office job ever woman Maya knew, other than Maya herself, seemed to be starting to crave, and the nights spent reading fairytales to two small, strawberry-blonde children; with several Friday nights a year spent at dance recitals and most weekends spent at Little League games, cheering on one or more child and pretending the lack of scorekeeping didn’t irritate her down to her core. She knew she wasn’t likely to ever want it, but she pretended she might, someday, because it proved much easier to lie than to say anything close to what actually _needed_ to be said. Everything else about her life was just _so difficult_ , back then, but being in love with Ben was so very _easy_ , and it’d always _been_ so very easy, and there’d been a period of time, brief as it might have been, when the idea of losing her partner proved more terrifying than the idea of losing herself.

That wasn’t the only reason she lied, though. It wasn’t only because she was scared. It was also because it felt _wrong_ , even thinking about leaving. They’d loved each other since they were fifteen, after all, and even almost sixteen years later, it was difficult to accept that loving someone didn’t always mean being _in love_ with them. What they’d had all those years was so much more special than anything else they’d had before, and it’d become that much more fragile as a result. Her marriage, her relationship with Ben in general, it was something she’d never wanted to let go. It was a hard pill to swallow, realizing that the thing she least wanted to let go of was the thing it was most important she did, for both his sake and her own.

Approximately eight weeks after they celebrated their sixth anniversary, Ben’s younger sister became a first-time mother, with the birth of his niece making him a first-time uncle. Maya went with him to visit his sister and niece in the hospital. She watched him hold his family’s newest addition, a beautiful baby girl who favored her mother’s side of the family and took after her Uncle Ben, most of all. She watched as he held that child, as he smiled down at her with adoration and pride and the sort of longing that so often was mistaken as sadness, and she made her decision. Her husband loved her more than anything; Maya knew that. But she couldn’t keep doing to him what she’d been doing all those years. She couldn’t keep being the reason that he didn’t even have an opportunity to meet someone he was guaranteed to love _so much more_.

The worst thing was, he’d never come out and blamed his lack of children on her. It was as if Ben saw it as a selfish desire, the sort of thing that might get in the way of the career she adored so much. It would have. It most certainly would have, but he wasn’t any more selfish for wanting it than she was for not. It was painful, their separation. It was excruciating, and unfair, and _right_. Maya knew that much as soon as she walked out the front door.

She filed the papers, and she agreed to fork over alimony payments he never asked for, because she was still a lawyer, even if her monthly paychecks came from the government, and he taught Senior English at a local high school – a career much nobler than hers, in some ways, but one that still paid fair less – and he’d always taken care of her, in his own way, for all those years that they had been together, making it seem only fair, really, that she take care of him in hers, as well.

And it still hurt, sometimes, the knowledge that she hadn’t been able to make it work. It still ached that her first love hadn’t been her last. But two weeks before her thirty-fourth birthday, Ben sent her a text, just one line of text accompanying a photograph of his newly adopted daughter. _This is Adelaide Mary_ , the message read, making her smile, and then, half a minute later, another text appeared, one that both made her smile widen and brought heartbroken, _grateful_ tears to her eyes. _Thank you, Maya._

He refused to take her alimony checks, after that, but he _did_ accept the many Panthers onesies she sent his way – even sent her a photograph of little Addie looking _adorable_ in that tiny cheerleader’s uniform she’d tried to walk away from but ultimately been unable to – and Maya figured that was a fair enough compromise.

He came to visit her in Quantico when Adelaide was about six months old. She held his daughter, feeling no resentment over the fact that it wasn’t _their_ daughter she was cradling in her arms. They spent a few hours just _talking_ , catching up on all they’d missed after nearly three years of absence from each other’s lives.

 _I’m sorry,_ he said at one point, so serious, his dark eyes meeting hers over his daughter’s head, _I’m sorry I asked you to want more than you did, Maya._

 _And I’m sorry I asked you to want less,_ she said in reply, and that was all they said on the subject, but it was enough, because then Adelaide woke up, and she held her arms out to Maya, the smile on her face enough like her father’s to prove that nurture had won out over nature, at least in this case, and neither of them felt any more grief over anything they’d had to give up in order to be witness to such a precious little girl’s happiness.

She waved them off that evening with a genuinely warm smile on her face, standing on her front porch as Ben strapped Adelaide into her carrier and then slid behind the wheel, double-checking every mirror in that overly cautious way Maya had only ever seen loving parents do. She watched them leave before heading back inside and pouring herself a glass of iced tea, not red wine, and she curled up on her sofa with a good book, flipping on the television so that some sort of documentary Trey had recommended every time she’d seen him the past month could play in the background.

She didn’t feel any resentment upon seeing Ben living his new life, nor did she feel any hurt. Instead, she felt… relief. Happiness, really, because as much as she wasn’t _in love_ with Ben, she still loved him so very much – would _always_ love him, _so very much_ – and she was glad to see him so joyful, so completely and utterly at ease, especially after all they’d put each other through in those final months of their marriage. She was glad he’d still gotten what he’d wanted, what he’d deserved, and that she had, too, even if they’d ultimately had to do so separately.

Goodbye had been hard, and painful, and almost enough to break her – to break both of them – for a while there. But it had been the right thing to do, the fair thing to do, and in the end, it’d been what’d gotten the both of them exactly where they were always meant to be.

She didn’t regret that. She _wouldn’t_ regret that, not ever, no matter what happened. Because as awful as it had been to lose him, she was glad neither of them had been forced to lose themselves before the realization struck. And she was happy, truly, to be faced with all the reasons they hadn’t worked and still be grateful they’d had that time together at all – grateful that she had been able to love and be loved in that way, no matter how briefly it’d ended up lasting.

For sixteen years, Maya had figured Ben was _the_ love of her life. At thirty-four, she knew he was only _a_ love of her life. And that was alright. That was fine. It was… it was good. It was always going to be good. And no matter what she faced next, knowing what they’d both gotten in return for that heartbreak was more than enough. Because the hello had been beautiful, but so had the goodbye, and no matter who she loved next, whether she kept them or lost them, too, she’d always be so unbelievably grateful life had given her the chance to experience both.


End file.
